"The Girl in the Window" and Other True Tales: An Anthology with Tips for Finding, Reporting, and Writing Nonfiction Narratives

Part anthology and part craft guide, this collection of pieces from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist offers something for readers and writers alike.   Lane DeGregory loves true stories, intimate details, and big ideas. In her three-decade career as a journalist, she has published more than 3,000 stories in newspapers and magazines and won dozens of national awards, including the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Her acclaimed work in the Tampa Bay Times often takes her to the edges of society, where she paints empathetic portraits of real-life characters like a 99-year-old man who still works cleaning a seafood warehouse, a young couple on a bus escaping winter, and a child in the midst of adoption. In “The Girl in the Window” and Other True Tales, DeGregory not only offers up the first collection of her most unforgettable newspaper features—she pulls back the curtain on how to write narrative nonfiction itself.   This book—part anthology, part craft guide—provides a forensic reading of twenty-four of DeGregory’s singular stories, illustrating her tips for writers alongside pieces that put those elements under the microscope. Each of the pieces gathered here—including the Pulitzer Prize-winning title story—is accompanied by behind-the-scenes notes on how she convinced her sources to open up, gathered quotes and details, and built the story—plus tips on how nonfiction writers at all levels can do the same in their work. Featuring a foreword by Beth Macy, author of the acclaimed Dopesick, this book’s unique format is sure to delight fans of DeGregory’s writing, as well as introduce her to readers and writers who have not yet discovered her creative and inspiring body of work.